A Hero's Legacy
by The Viking Dreamer
Summary: Captain America's involvement in the Battle of New York impacts one life in a way he didn't expect.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is my first time writing fanfic in any way, shape, or form, so if you have any suggestions for anything I could do better, please let me know! R&amp;R if you feel like it.**

Andrea woke up, and the first thought that popped into her head was, _Today's the day._

She quickly got dressed and ate, being careful not to wake her still-sleeping parents. Both worked hard, and deserved to sleep in on the weekends a lot more than they did. After retrieving the rolled-up poster from her room, she crept past her parents' room. Her heartbeat fluttered with excitement and nervousness as she opened the door to the empty bedroom at the end of the hall, turning the doorknob as slowly as she could. It only let out a quiet _click_, thankfully.

The room looked the same way it had for exactly a year. The bed was neatly made, all the little throw pillows arranged just the same way the owner had left them. Books and several CDs stood where they had been left stacked on the nightstand. Andrea inhaled, a quiet sadness flooding her when she didn't smell the sweet-pea perfume that used to linger here.

"Time to go," she said aloud, tearing herself out of her trancelike state. She picked up the baseball cap that had been lying on the floor beside the closet, blew the dust off the New York Giants logo and the bill, and put it on.

The cab ride between her apartment and the convention center downtown gave her enough time to question her motives. Why was she doing this? Was it for closure? She pulled off the baseball cap, along with a few strands of her blonde hair that had gotten snagged in the snap-close adjuster band, and stared at it. How did she even know this was going to work?

When she arrived at the convention center, people were swarming through the doors, most in costume. Over a hundred voices speaking at once created a massive, incoherent babble that echoed off the ceiling and walls. After signing in (and coughing up no small amount of her hard-earned cash for the admissions fee), Andrea set her face, stuck her rolled-up poster under one arm, and wove through the crowd, careful not to step on the trailing edges of capes or gowns or bump protruding elbows.

A bubble of solitude enveloped her as she strode through the convention center, heading for the main stage. Every few seconds she glanced down at the map in her hands, reassuring herself she hadn't taken a wrong turn and wasn't hopelessly lost in the sea of pop culture surrounding her. Though nervousness ate at her stomach, she kept her head up, trying to look as if she had everything together and knew exactly what she was doing.

She knew the main stage when she saw it. Streamers alternating red, white, and blue with white stars hung from the ceiling around the stage. A huge banner was draped at the back, and a strange tightness rose in her throat when she saw the face emblazoned across it.

MEET CAPTAIN AMERICA, the banner read, NEW YORK'S OWN AVENGER.

_Wouldn't that be Tony Stark, too? _Andrea wondered. She'd often seen the Stark Tower, standing tall in downtown Manhattan. Tony—Ironman—was as much a New Yorker as Captain America.

But that wasn't the thought she needed to focus on.

A figure appeared onstage, and the convention-goers starting cheering. Andrea rose up on her tiptoes, but an eighties Wolverine, complete with spiked blue hair, blocked her line of sight. She let out a huff of frustration and edged forward until she came upon a relatively unobstructed spot in the crowd, and there he was. Steve Rogers, alias Captain America.

Clad in his patriotic suit, his muscular body easily over six feet tall, he towered above the crowd, larger than life. The shield that hung on his left arm was battered, but the star in its center was still clear. He waved, generating another surge of cheering from the crowd.

Andrea unrolled her poster and held it up with both hands. Ignoring a sarcastic "Holy obstructed view, Batman" from behind her, she stretched as high as her small frame would allow, straining to lift the sign above the sea of faces.

She had spent nearly a week painstakingly lettering the sign, ensuring that enough black lined the red letters so that the proclamation stood out blazing clear: YOU SAVED MY SISTER'S LIFE. A lump sat in her throat as she watched, heart pounding, wondering if he would see.

The hero took notice, and his expression changed beneath the helmet.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, but finals got in the way of fiction. Thanks to those who favorited/followed this story! Short chapter this time. (Not that the last wasn't short…)**

Andrea held her breath, waiting. But after a moment, Captain America turned his attention back to the crowd, a smile lighting his face. He spoke, and his voice boomed from the speakers rigged around the stage, but Andrea couldn't make out the words. It all sounded like rushing wind, the world around her a blur.

She stood there for what felt like hours, though her watch told her it was less than thirty minutes, as Captain America signed autographs and posed for pictures. Finally he raised his hand in farewell and disappeared offstage. The crowd began to disperse, excited chatter cluttering the air.

_What was I expecting to feel? _Andrea asked herself as she turned away. Certainly not this…numbness. She'd thought…she'd thought that once she'd done this there would be a feeling of reassurance, a feeling of comfort, a feeling that the universe might cast its glance on her and take a moment to pat her on the back. Tell her it would be alright.

How naïve.

Head down, she worked her way back to the front doors of the convention center, her sign clutched in one hand. An Eleventh Doctor bumped against her, muttering an apology as he straightened his bowtie. Andrea nodded silently and kept walking.

"You're the girl with the big sign, right?" a voice called from behind her.

She whirled around to see a convention security guard, walk-talkie in hand.

"Yeah, I have a sign," she replied automatically, shocked. Recovering a little, she went on, "But there are lots of girls here with signs."

"Maybe so," the guard said, quirking an eyebrow, "but most of them say 'marry me, so-and-so', not 'you saved my sister's life'."

"Is something the matter?"

"Apparently you made an impression on someone."

She wasn't sure if it was real or her imagination, but Andrea felt her heart skip a beat. She realized suddenly that she was staring at the guard, mouth hanging open very slightly. He laughed—though not unkindly—as she snapped her jaw shut with an audible _click._

"Follow me—and what's your name?"

"Andrea," she whispered. "Andrea Blake."

_It must have been him. He noticed. He saw the sign! _As she trailed behind the guard, Andrea couldn't help but put a little skip in her step. She smiled, and reached up to adjust her baseball cap.

_I'm finally meeting Captain America._


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Okay, first off, I'm so, so very sorry about keeping you guys waiting so long! Starting a story over winter break is a horrible idea, and I should have known that it would be impossible to keep up with it while balancing all my other responsibilities and projects. Lesson learned!**

**Second, I'd like to thank ErinKenobi2893 for the suggestion—I took it and ran with it. Without your idea, this chapter would have been very different, and probably not as interesting.**

**Onward ho!**

As they wended their way through the crowd, Steve instinctively tried to turn his face so he'd be less recognizable. At every footstep he cringed, waiting to hear a shout of "Look—there he is!" and to be inundated by a seething crowd.

He told himself to relax, and reassured himself that he was in no danger of being recognized. 'Trust the tech', Stark had said to him, when he'd given Steve the Photostatic Veil.

_Easy for him to say. He _understands _it. I have no idea what the stuff is half the time, let alone how to use it. I wish…I wish—_

As always, though, he couldn't allow himself to finish the thought. It wasn't healthy, dwelling on the past, feeding his bitterness by yearning to change things that couldn't be changed. He was here and now, and he had to accept that.

The slap of tennis shoes on the floor behind him brought him out of his thoughts. He turned his head to see the girl—Andrea Blake, he remembered—trotting after him to keep up with his longer strides, with a look that was half excitement and half nerves on her face. Her poster was rolled up and stuck under her arm. Wisps of blonde hair escaped from under her baseball cap and straggled over her wide blue eyes, making her look younger, less sure of herself.

He found himself smiling a little as he looked at that hat. New York Giants—he'd been to one of their games, back in the day. Bucky had been the one to buy the tickets. Steve had protested, saying a football game wasn't worth wasting money on, but Bucky had just laughed him off. They'd ended up having a great time—something that had haunted Steve for years afterward. Every time he'd make a prediction, in all certainty that he was right, Bucky would simply grin and ask innocently, "Remember that football game?"

He felt his smile falter as his happiness turned to a painful stab of grief, like a knife twisting in his gut. _Bucky_. He missed Bucky.

"Hey, what's your name?" Andrea's question jolted him out of his thoughts.

"Mike Parker." That was the name on the badge, anyway.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

He tossed a glance over his shoulder to see her nervously fingering the brim of her hat. Why was she nervous? His eyebrows drew together for a second, but then he kicked himself mentally as understanding suddenly dawned on him. Of course she was nervous—she was young, and female, and _alone_.

_You're a damn idiot, Steve. _

"Cap was thinking about meeting you somewhere less…crowded. Like a restaurant or something. SuperCon's a little loud for his taste."

Andrea snorted, a small smirk appearing on her face. "I don't go for crowds myself."

Even as she spoke a blush spread across her cheeks like wildfire, and she fell silent. Well. Looked like he had a shy one on his hands. He wondered, if she was so shy, why she'd stood in the middle of a sea of cheering people and held up an enormous sign for all to see. Kid must have something to prove.

His thoughts turned back to the sign's message: _You saved my sister's life. _Huh. When? How? Who was this sister, and why hadn't she come to meet him as well? He would have thought that if someone unknowingly saved your life, you'd at least want to tell them so in person.

"You still back there?" he asked.

God, his voice sounded _weird._ He'd never get used to the Photostatic Veil's voice disguise. Every time he spoke he felt the urge to look over his shoulder and try to spot the owner of the strange voice.

Use of the device was strictly off-limits to anyone outside of SHIELD's elite inner circle of agents, but since Stark had had a hand in developing it, he'd told Steve he should have a say in who got one. 'Never know when you're gonna need it,' he'd said. Steve doubted he'd have ever considered the possibility that it would be used for _this_ particular escapade.

How was he going to pull this off, anyway? He hadn't really thought it out back in his dressing room—just donned a security uniform and stuck the Veil on his face. It hadn't crossed his mind how (or where) he was going to transform from security guard to Steve Rogers once they left the convention.

He was still thinking about it when they arrived outside, and waited for a taxi at the curb. Andrea glanced up at him, an expression of worry flashing across her face.

"Where are we going?"

"Cap wanted to meet you at a restaurant," Steve replied. "He said to let you pick which one, and I'll call him to tell him where to meet us."

Andrea's tight eyebrows smoothed, and she smiled—still tentative, but it was the first real smile she'd given him. "Well, there's this one noodle shop in Chinatown I like."

"Is it quiet?" he asked, already thinking of dozens upon dozens of people, all looking at him, pointing, talking…

"I guess." She shrugged. "It's pretty small."

When a taxi stopped for them, Steve had Andrea give the address of the noodle shop to the driver. As they wended through traffic, there was silence in the car, both of them wrapped up in their own thoughts. Steve had to smile to himself. He sure hadn't chosen a talker. This kid was as introverted as they came. He wondered just how much courage she had had to muster to hold up that sign. It wasn't like she'd been charging across a battlefield amid mortar fire, but still—he knew bravery when he saw it.

"So," he said finally, breaking the silence, "who's this sister Cap saved?"

"My older sister, Aimee," Andrea said. She reached up and started running her fingers through a lock of her hair. Nervous habit, probably.

"Why didn't she come?"

The hair-fussing intensified. "Personal reasons."

"Ah." He knew better than to push the matter further. From the way she said it, he thought he knew what 'personal reasons' meant.


End file.
